Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

Not useful to think about right now, Mel. Just be glad it’s not another goddamned dress.

Not that denim is any more my style. But at least there’s sturdy cloth between me and Xavier now. Let’s just take not naked as a win.

It doesn’t stop Xavier from assuming he has full rights to my body, though. He closes the space between us and clamps his hand to the back of my neck with a firm but gentle pressure. Then he slides it slowly down the back of my shoulder, dips in toward my waist, and finishes with a light pat to my ass.

“Breakfast.”

He heads out of the room with the confidence of a man who knows I’ll follow.

And damn him, I do.

I’m hungry. Last night’s meal was only enough to quench my initial hunger.

There are vegetable omelets waiting for us on covered plates when we get downstairs. I guess he cooked them before he came up to get me.

And there’s the damned pillow by his chair.

At least he doesn’t snap his fingers at me today. He just exerts a light pressure on my shoulder, urging me down when we reach the head of the table.

Path of least resistance. It’s still my strategy even if there were disturbing results last night.

I go to my knees and he feeds me the omelet from his fingers. I can’t help but be wary with every bite, waiting for whatever new bit of fuckery is coming next.

But breakfast goes off without a hitch. Normal as normal can be while, you know, crouched like a dog at my Master’s feet.

“Up,” he says after withdrawing the cup of orange juice from my lips. He rises and puts our dishes in the kitchen sink. “Full day of work ahead.”

Okaaaaaaay. I get to my feet. I guess I’ll finally see what he does outside all day. I’m not sure I like this new development. I was just A-Okay hanging out inside where there’s air-conditioning, reading books all day.

If I’m going to be stuck here, at least let me be a properly kept woman. Especially if I have access to that awesome bathtub with the jets now.

But the way he’s standing, eyes flicking expectantly between me and the back door tells me there’s probably not going to be much lounging in my future. At least not today.

I don’t suppose explaining that I was never much of an outside girl would help at this point? I spent my summers at debate camp and doing even the most menial internships I could find at small businesses in New York. Anything I thought might look good on a college application. The outside was a place you had to endure to get to and from the subway station when traffic was too bad to bother with an Uber or a taxi.

Xavier jerks his head toward the door as he picks up his wide-brimmed hat from a side table and I get the unspoken verbal cue—he’s big on those—time to get moving.

I head out the door. From the clock in the kitchen I saw that it’s eight in the morning. By the look of Xavier, he’s already been up several hours. I think that the times I’ve seen him leaving in the mornings are actually when he’s come back to the house after having been out already several hours, like today. As in, he gets up around four-thirty or something crazy like that, then comes back in for breakfast at seven or eight.

I’ve always been something of a night owl and while I worked my ass off and was never late, you never saw me at the office a minute before 8:55.

Morning people freak me out.

Shocker that Xavier loves waking up before the crack of dawn.

When I step outside, it smells like fresh grass and… is that cow manure? Awesome. Loving this already.

Not to mention the first sight that greets me is the pigpen that was my home for three days. For a second, my feet freeze. Is this all a ruse and he’s just trying to get me out here so he can lock me back up in there again?

But no, his hand comes to the small of my back and he directs us away from the shed and around the far side of the house, toward the part of the property I haven’t been able to see before. My room faces the front of the house and this area is what could be called the ‘side yard,’ even though it opens up to endless land.

Then we turn the corner and—holy shit!

There’s one large barn or stable and then several smaller out buildings.

And horses.

A lot of horses.

Okay, so maybe only nine or ten, but to a person who’s never seen a horse up close and in person, that’s a ton of horses!

There are several large paddocks and pastures, some with several horses together, others with just a single horse. A couple are running with manes flying out gloriously in the morning sunlight.